I'd walk on the water in your dad's swimming pool...

The Leafs haven’t interviewed a single candidate for the President/GM job, despite having fired JFJ back on January 22.

This comes as no surprise to me.

While I'm no expert on the inner workings of NHL level executive recruitment, I would guess that the vast majority of candidates for the Leafs post are currently under contract with other NHL clubs. Not only does their current contractual status preclude them from being interviewed by MLSE, any reasonable person would also realize that these prospective candidates are a little more focused on their respective team's cup run than interviewing with Peddie and Kirke.

That little bit of logic appears to be of very little interest to Damien Cox, who vomits up 632 words on the fact that the Leafs haven’t conducted any formal interviews for the President/GM post.

According to Cox,

What was a surprise, however, was that Peddie made it clear that he, and the team, don't believe time is of the essence when it comes to hiring a new hockey czar…and the Leafs seem content with the possibility that the "hunt" could linger into July or August.

Can you believe the gumption of MLSE? They’re actually willing to let a month, maybe two, pass between the awarding of the Stanley Cup and the hiring of their next President and GM.

I don’t know about Damien, but if I were looking to make the most important hire my organization has ever faced, I’d certainly want to rush things. I certainly would want to be beholden to false deadlines.

Cox continues:

In two months, no candidates have been interviewed – wouldn't now be a good time to chat with unemployed types like Doug Armstrong or Neil Smith, highly regarded individuals like Hockey Canada's Bob Nicholson or even NHL executive Colin Campbell?

Hmm. It seems to me Cox was front and centre at a certain press conference when MLSE identified the criteria of their next GM. Peddie clearly said (or maybe he just moved his lips and someone else said it) all GM candidates must have prior experience running an NHL club (so long Campbell, no dice Nicholson) and ideally should have won at the NHL level (so much for Armstong).

That leaves Neil Smith.

The man who claims he invented fantasy hockey.

A man who hasn’t had a GM job for a decade (unless you count his 3 weeks on Long Island).

Can you imagine the indignation Cox would muster up for his column if Neil Smith were ever mentioned as a front runner for the Leafs? Oy gevalt.

Back to Cox:

It would have made far more sense for Peddie to declare that an aggressive hunt is on, every possibility is being examined and a new executive saviour will definitely be in place by the entry draft to begin charting a more productive future.

Let’s do some math on this one.

The playoffs will likely wrap up the first week in June.

The entry draft is June 21.

If Peddie were to do what Cox recommends, the Leafs would have, at most, two weeks to interview, negotiate with and ultimately sign their new President/GM. Never mind the time required to get the appropriate permissions to interview and dealing with any other contractual issues.

Does anyone, other than Cox, think this is remotely realistic?

Maybe Leaf fans could chip in a couple of bucks and order up Damien some remedial help so that he can learn to pick-up the phone and call an actual source. I'd love to know what any executive recruiting firm worth it's salt would have to say about procuring a top executive and having them signed sealed and delivered in 10 business days or less.

Yet, that's not only what Cox thinks MLSE should be doing, he's openly castigating them in print for their failure to do so.

What would it take to satisfy this guy?

I also love this aside in Cox's column:

It's worth noting here that the three stars of last night's game were Anton Stralman, Jiri Tlusty and Nik Antropov. Stralman and Tlusty were drafted under Ferguson's leadership, while the contracts of Antropov ($2 million U.S.), goalie Vesa Toskala ($3 million) and defenceman Tomas Kaberle ($4.25 million) were all negotiated by JFJ and are the most salary cap-effective deals the team has.

Funny how Cox fails to mention the other half of that equation. How the NTC5 and the mediocre play of Blake, Raycroft, Wozniewski – all with contracts negotiated by JFJ - were the least salary-cap effective deals the team has and a big reason why JFJ no longer has a job.

Cox concludes:

So while Peddie was ostensibly doing damage control, all it really did was make it abundantly clear that the dazed and confused Leafs are pursuing the future with continued maximum dysfunction as their guide.

Uh, sure Damien. Whatever you say buddy.

Far be it from me to defend MLSE (I'm going to need a shower after typing this) but taking an additional month to hire the one person that this entire organization and fan base will be putting their faith in is the wrong thing to do?

The right thing to do is to commit to a ten day window to find their saviour?

If that’s how Cox defines "dysfunctional" I wonder what's the apt adjective to describe the Toronto Star’s newsroom and Cox’s ability to churn this stuff out for nearly 20 years?

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For those of you interested in the “PR efforts” Cox refers to, there’s an excellent six minute, 40 second clip of Elliot Friedman interviewing Richard Peddie from Saturday’s CBC game. To view it, surf over to here, click on the “search” option, type in Peddie and Inside Hockey,March 29 should be your top option. (Hopefully, your video feed won’t buffer as badly as mine. And if you do watch, put yourself in Peddie's shoes when he's asked about the Habs marketing efforts with Grade 5 students - I hate that f*cker Peddie with a passion, but he gets full marks for not falling off his seat and laughing at Friedman over that line of questioning.)

In 2006, it was a Martin St. Louis OT goal that officially ended the Leafs' playoff dreams. At the time, it was hard to believe the Leafs wouldn't make the post-season, shocking even.

In 2007, a Wade Dubliwicz poke-check (the last and final play of the 2006-2007 NHL season) brought it all crashing down. As much as I disliked the direction of the team and it's management, missing the playoffs still stung.

This year, it was a powerplay goal by the 87 year old Glen Murray that officially once-and-for-all put a fork in the Leafs. (For those of you without Leafs TV, Murray parked his walker in the corner, hobbled to the front of the net and tucked one in without a white jersey going anywhere near him. Maybe the Leafs were respecting their elders or maybe that's how teams with the 30th ranked PK roll.) Unlike previous years, any disappointment at this club failing to reach the post-season was used up months ago. Seeing them flop and fail against the Bruins produced a great big "meh"

So now it's time to focus on coach firings, GM hirings, waivers, shutting down the injured and infirm and prepping for the draft. Oh, and let's go Raycroft!

Take one step and miss the whole first rung

The Leafs 6-2 loss to the Snoozin' Bruins may help answer a question that has puzzled me since February 26: how many must-win games can one team actually lose? Based on the season to date and the attendant media nonesense, my guess is three, maybe four.

The Leafs coughing up six (rather ugly) goals to the Bruins marks the first time Boston has potted a six-spot since November. It may also mark a very sad day at the CBC. With the Leafs out of the playoffs, I foresee mass layoffs down at the CBC and a move to a 24 hour cycle of nothing but Mr. Dressup, the Friendly Giant, Trouble with Tracy and King of Kensington re-runs.

As for the draft v. playoff-drive debate: the Leafs are six points out with five games to go. More importantly, the Leafs are five up on the Islanders who sit in 26th - the final spot that has a (remote) shot at winning the draft lottery.

If I were coach or GM, it would clearly be Raycroft time (hint: scan down to 75th spot to find him).

Two Questions

The NYT has asked blogs from all 30 teams to answer two questions about their club:

1. Will your team make the playoffs? Why or Why not?
2. What team is it vitally important to have *miss* the playoffs, and why?

My answers have just been submitted and should be posted over at Slap Shot in the next few days, in the interim I'm interested to know how other Leaf fans would have answered these two questions...

Praying for the Playoffs or Planning the re-build

Unlike PPP, I'm not back on the Leafs playoff band wagon (yet). While I'd love for the team to keep winning and I've really enjoyed the last few games (is there a better team to beat than Philly? I just hate the flyers) I'm still trying to focus on the big picture. The more compelling story lines for me remain: who is going to clean this mess up, what prospects might be headed for the blue and white, and can this organization make a long-term commitment to building a winning culture.

Whether you're praying for the playoffs or planning for the re-build here are some links that might be of interest:

For you playoff dreamers, check out this Yahoo site - each day they update the first round playoff match-ups as if the playoffs were starting today. Bruins v. Habs? Meh, not so much. Stars v Ducks? Now that would be an interesting opening round match-up. Hat tip to Deadspin's hockey closer Greg Wyshnyski for that link.

For those of you who dream of a re-build, here's an amazingly candid look at what's going on with the L.A. Kings. It's long but well worth the read - fascinating stuff about Mark-Andre Fleury, arbitration, building teams with free agents, etc. Hat tip to Mirtle on this one...

Don't Call it a Comeback

Leafs 4, Philly 3 (OT)

It's games like this that make me realize why I follow sports.

For weeks, everything about the Leafs has focused on magic numbers, tragic numbers, the post-season point-gap and a never ending list of must-win games. In short - everything but what really matters: the game on the ice.

And then a game like this comes along. Big hits, nice goals, lots of tension. That third period may be the most fun I've had watching a game since the lock-out (sadly three years without your team in the post-season will do that, I suppose). I stood up and yelled when Poni missed the empty net with about 40 seconds to go.

The Leafs may stink. The post-season dream may have died months ago. The organization still needs to undergo a massive re-build and the game reports may be full of negativity, but I can't wait to see what happens at the re-match in Philly.

D'oh, the Humanity!

The Canadian Press is reporting that the Leafs' poor performance is now to blame for production cancellations at the CBC (feel free to pick your flavour - the Star and the Globe both ran the same CP wire story).

Apparently, without the playoff revenues generated by the large audiences that tune into post-season Leaf broadcasts, the CBC can't afford to keep crap quality programming like Hockey Wives and Jpod on the air.

I'll give 3-5 odds that, upon hearing this news, William Houston is likely lying on his floor, foaming at the mouth, and experiencing some serious out-of-body cognitive dissonance.

Given the history of the Leafs, it should come as no surprise that MLSE is to blame for crappy CBC shows getting the can. As anyone that's followed this organization for 70+ years can tell you, there's plenty of badly photoshopped evidence of just how much pain and suffering the Leafs have caused.

There was that little incident with the blimp:

Hurricane Katrina? Had MLSE's fingerprints all over it:

And new evidence has emerged regarding the real architects of the war in Iraq...

Reader Chemmy sent this great one in:

Fire Maurice

Who thinks it's a good idea to double shift Tucker and Blake in the final 3 minutes and put them back out on the ice with less than a minute to go?

Anybody?

Can I get a show of hands?

Seriously.

My mother-in-law knows better than to throw that mess of a line out late in a game and she thinks the Kansas City Scouts or maybe the Golden Seals are the teams to beat this year.

Off the top of my head, this line combination has now given-up last minute game losing goals against New Jersy, Boston, and Tampa.

I'm speechless.

Manufacturing Content

CBC Radio in Montreal gave me a call late this afternoon.

Sports Illustrated polled 350+ NHL players asking them which team had the best fans - players couldn't vote for their own teams (I did a quick search on-line but couldn't find this poll).

As it was a Montreal station calling, it should come as no surprise that the Habs came out on top. The Leafs came in at #6 (Wild were 2, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver - in no particular order - rounded out the top 5; Sens were in 12th).

The radio guy wanted to know what I thought of the Habs being ranked on top. I told them I was happy Hab fans were back on the bandwagon and that it wasn't a surprise that with the Habs challenging for top spot in the east, their fans would be ranked #1.

This reaction really wasn't what he wanted.

He asked me how I felt about my beloved Leafs ranking so low, I said (paraphrasing):

Given that the ACC is full of suits - it's a series of corporations cheering on a corporation - I'm surprised the Leafs placed as high as they did. That, on balance, a sixth place ranking was probably very accurate as the Fans down at the ACC are quiet as a morgue while the Leaf fans that can get tickets in Buffalo, Ottawa and other Canadian cities are far more passionate and likely push the rankings closer to the top five.

(Of course my actual quote was likely chock-full of ums, ahs, uhs and dead air.)

He shut off the tape.

This clearly wasn't what he wanted.

We talked hockey for a bit (he was a pretty cool guy, seemed like an Oilers fan) and then he told me that he had to go get back on the phone to find a Leaf fan that was actually upset about the rankings.

Nothing like fair and balanced representative journalism from the Mother Corp.

Waivers v. Buy-Outs (with a small update)

I thought I was watching NHL Classics last night, a repeat from last January when the Leafs beat the Bruins 10-4. (As an aside, I actually managed to see that that game via sopcast whilst eating paranthas and drinking chai at a very early breakfast in Hyderabad, India. It's a very odd feeling when an NHL game finishes at 9 AM.)

Here's a bit of a quirky factoid: the same day that the Leafs pasted the Bruins 10-4, the Canadian Juniors beat the US in the semis when Carey Price stopped Peter Mueller in the shoot-out.

Fast forward 14 months and on the night that the Leafs paste the Bruins for a second time, Price bests Mueller again in their first match-up since that World Junior shoot-out game.

Buyouts? Really?!?

I'm not sure why there's been so much talk about the Leafs buying out various players. Wharnsby was guilty of this in yesterday's Globe, it's a talking point in Cox's most recent mailbag and it was a featured element of Steve's (otherwise great) blog entry on how he'd re-build the Leafs.

Buy-outs have become bit of a zombie issue to me - no matter how many times you think you've killed them, they just keep coming back.

So long as there's such a thing as the waiver wire, there's no reason to buy-out anyone on this team - with the exception of players with a NMC.

Full stop.

There's no reason for the Leafs to take any type of long-term cap hit to dispose of Blake, Bell, Raycroft, Kubina (take your pick of 90% of the roster) when those players can be placed on waivers (obviously, a trade would be the preferred method but if a guy won't waive his NTC, the waiver wire it is.)

Here's how the waiver wire works:

If another club claims a player off the waiver wire, that team takes on 100% of the salary and 100% of the cap hit. The Leafs are free and clear of the player, the salary and the cap implications.

If the player goes unclaimed, the Leafs then have two options:

1. Pay the player their salary to play in the AHL (or ECHL if it's Raycroft).

Under this option, the Leafs do have to pay their salary, but if the player is playing in the minors, the team takes zero cap hit (zip; nada; zilch). MLSE has deep deep pockets so I don't think this will be too much of a problem.

2. The Leafs can also recall an unclaimed waived player with the rather large caveat that the player has to clear waivers a second time (re-entry waivers). Under this option, if the player is claimed on re-entry by another team, the Leafs are on the hook for 50% of their salary (and 50% of the cap hit) for the duration of that player's contract. This is what Pittsburgh did with Recchi (now with Atlanta) and Chicago did with Samsonov (now with Carolina).

So waivers or buy-outs?

Let's take Raycroft as an example.

If the Leafs buy-out his contract, under the CBA the Leafs must pay Rayzor 2/3rds of his remaining contract, paid out over twice the remaining length of the deal.

Raycroft, with one year remaining on a $2 million contract (nice work JFJ!), would be paid $2MM x.66 /2 or $660,000 for two years with the Leafs carrying that $660K cap hit for two seasons as well.

Factor in a replacement back-up goaltenders salary - say Pogge at $638 - and the Leafs are stuck with a cap hit of $1.3M for back-up goaltending.

The buy-out creates $700K in cap space.

If they waive Raycroft, the Leafs pay $638K for back-up goaltending and take a cap hit of $638K for back-up goaltending.

The waiver wire creates $1.36 million in cap space.

Seems like a no-brainer to me.

***Update***

As I was on my way to a lunch meeting it struck me that buy-outs vs. waivers might just be the key to understanding this franchise.

Consider: a buy-out hinders the Leafs by saddling the team with a multi-year cap hit, but it ultimately saves MLSE money and funnels more dollars towards their bottom line.

A waived player makes things better for the Leafs but costs MLSE a lot more dough.

Based on that very basic and rather simplistic viewpoint, I'll go out on a limb here and suggest that if this club waives players, MLSE may not be the greedy, bottom-line first franchise as so many detractors claim.

Conversely, if they pursue buy-outs instead of waivers, it certainly suggests that the bottom line comes before doing whatever it takes to help the Leafs win.

Competing Interests?

Ack! Yesterday my blog entry was remarkably similar to Damien Cox's entry at the Spin. I'm not sure I'm down with this particular piece of synchronicity.

But Cox's column, Paul's comments on my blog entry and Paul Hunter's item in Today's Star all raise an interesting point: at what point does the organization put long-term interests ahead of the short-term W and L columns?

Now, before the tank brigade arrives (and while the rest of us wait for Darren Dreger to finish sounding out these multi-syllabic words) let me be clear: I'm not talking about anyone throwing games; I am not suggesting any player give anything less than 100%; I am not recommending a coach, player or anyone at MLSE take any action that brings the integrity of the team, league or sport into question (like, I don't know, the LA Kings recalling and actually playing Dan Cloutier).

I'm just wondering at what point Fletcher or someone at MLSE clues in and says it's time for Tlusty and Williams to have a regular shift, in all three periods and in all game situations. It's time to see Stralman on the PP, PK and ES. It's time to shut down the injured and infirm and to recall Earl. It's time for Toskala to take a well deserved night off and for Raycroft to see if he can keep his save percentage close to the .800s (or maybe even higher).

And while I'm completely and thoroughly convinced this club can't and won't make the playoffs, the last time the Leafs changed-up the goalies and gave the kids a chance, the team went 10 and 2 down the stretch.

As a Leaf fan, it sure would be nice to see the kids play so we can get a sense of what the future might hold. It would be great to get injured players off the ice and start getting them ready to play next year when it actually matters, and it sure wouldn't hurt to have a better shot in the draft lottery this summer.

One more chance to get it all wrong

No matter where you set the points bar to qualify for the post-season in the East (does it really matter if it's 89 or 93 points?) the Leafs can pretty much lose no more than two, maybe three games the rest of the season if they want to make it to the post-season dance.

The way this season has gone, two losses is pretty much an average week, week-and-a-half in Leaf land.

Clearly the playoffs are a pipe dream - as they have been since the all-star break - sixteen wins in your first 43 games will do that to a team.

I don't think missing the playoffs is the worst part of this season (yeah, it stings) - what's worse is what the Leafs are doing with their prospects.

Why on earth is Tlusty playing four to six minutes a night? He got a single shift in the second period against the Devils. He's averaging five shifts a game. Is it just me? Why is this kid even in the NHL?

I know he's just an injury fill-in, but Jeremy Williams had just one shift in the second and a single shift in the third.

Stalman got a more respectable 14:35 of ice time.

Is this any way to develop and evaluate talent?

Hopefully, someone near and dear to the coaching and player development staff will find a calculator and do the post-season math for them. Once the Leafs are officially-officially eliminated from the playoffs, I hope Maurice just lets the kids play.

The rest of the team couldn't carry the mail this year, the playoffs aren't going to happen, clearly it's time to give the kids plenty of ice time to see what they're capable of.